In 1896, the five-story new headquarters of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opened at 50 Madison Avenue on the northwest corner at 26th Street overlooking Madison Square Park.

Designed by the architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen, it was one of the most distinguished buildings surrounding the park, which extends south to 23rd Street. In their excellent book, "The A.I.A. Guide to New York City Architecture, Third Edition," (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), Norval White and Elliot Willensky described the building as "A proper London club in delicately tooled limestone," adding that "Note the elaborately tooled cornice. Even stray mongrels and alley cats deserved distinguished architecture in the 1890s."

That cornice is now gone as the building has been nicely remodeled into an 11-story luxury condominium building by Samson Management. The lower three floors of the old building have been preserved by the project's architects, Platt Byard Dovell White, and eight new, limestone clad floors have been added.

The building was recently topped out and is expected to be ready for occupancy this fall, the first of several major residential conversions around the park. Other major conversion projects include the former Gift Building down the block from this handsome project at 225 Fifth Avenue and the great former Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tower at 1 Madison Avenue.

The apartments at 50 Madison Park, as the building is now known, are full-floor units and include a duplex penthouse that was on the market recently for more than $5 million. Sean Johnson has designed the interiors of the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath apartments. The building has a doorman, individual storage units and permits pets, perhaps even "stray mongrels."